Match Information
Opponent	Temple Owls
Date	Friday, November 16, 2018
Time	7:00 p.m.
Location	Philadelphia, Pa. | Liacouras Center
Tickets	Purchase
Getting There	Directions
Online Media	Patriot League Network | Live Stats
Follow Us	Facebook | Twitter
Game Notes	Loyola

Quick Hits About The Hounds

• Loyola University Maryland heads out on the road for the first of four-straight games away from Reitz Arena.
• The Greyhounds head to Philadelphia for a 7 p.m. game on Friday, November 16, at Temple University.
• Friday's game is part of the GotPrint.com Legends Classic presented by Old Trapper and will steam live on OwlsTV.
• Tavaras Hardy is in his first season as head coach of the Greyhounds. He was named the 21st head coach in Loyola men's basketball history on March 28, 2018.
• Hardy will be joined on the sidelines by three assistant coaches who are also in this first year at Loyola: A.J. Guyton, Ivo Simović and Brenden Straughn. Kevin Farrell is back for his seventh season as the team's director of operations.
• Five players – Jaylin Andrews, Brandon Bradsher, Kenneth Jones, Casmir Ochiaka and Markese Redding – made their Loyola debuts in the season-opener at St. John's.
• Three players – Isaiah Hart, Andrew Kostecka and Chuck Champion – who started more than half of last year's 30 games return for the 2018-2019 season. 
• Loyola also has three players return who averaged 10.3 or more points per game in 2017-18. Chuck Champion checked in with 11.5 points, Andrew Kostecka had 11.0, and Isaiah Hart added 10.3.

Series History

• Loyola and Temple will meet for the eighth time in series history when the teams take the floor Friday night as part of the GotPrint.com Legends Classic presented by Old Trapper.
• The game, however, will be the first time the teams have squared off on the hardwood in almost 89 years. They last played on February 21, 1930, when Temple scored a 52-30 win in Philadelphia.
• Loyola and Temple played twice in both 1915-16 and 1916-17 before playing once each in 1919-20 and 1923-24.

Philly Guys

• Several Greyhounds will be making homecomings or near-homecomings Thursday night at Temple. Chuck Champion is from the City of Philadelphia and Friends Central High School. James Fives and the Norton brothers, Sam and Ethan, all played at The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. The Nortons are from Collegeville, while Fives hails from Scranton.

Last Time Out

• Loyola made its first six shots from the field – four of them 3-pointers – and the Greyhounds went on to a 91-62 non-conference victory over visiting Delaware State on Tuesday night, giving first-year Head Coach Tavaras Hardy the first win of his career.
• Chuck Champion led all players with 15 points, while James Fives had a season-high 14, and Andrew Kostecka contributed 13 as all but two of the 15 Greyhounds who saw game action scored points.
• In the paint, KaVaughn Scott had nine points, eight rebounds, two assists and two blocked shots, and Brent Holcombe scored seven to go with three assists and a game-high nine rebounds.
• The teams connected on a combined six 3-poitners in the game's first two minutes, five seconds. Scott knocked down the first one of his career to put Loyola's first points on the board, Fives hit one at 18:32, and then Champion converted a pair on back-to-back possessions. Loyola then got a pair of buckets in the paint, first by Scott, and then Kostecka in transition off an Isaiah Hart assist, forcing a Delaware State timeout at 16:43.
• Loyola's shooting cooled off for a stretch, and the Hornets took three one-point leads with under 10 minutes to go in the first half. Loyola's lead was one, 27-26, after a Saleik Edwards jumper at 4:57, but the Greyhounds tallied the next eight points to go up 35-26 on a Jaylin Andrews free throw with 61 seconds left in the half.
• The gap shrunk to five on an Edward three 4:34 into the second half – he scored a game-high 16 points – but the Greyhounds tallied five of the next six, and the lead was 46-36 on a Holcombe layup at 14:03.
• "Pinky" Wiley made one of two at the free-throw line for Delaware State with just over 10 minutes left in regulation, bringing the margin to 10, but Loyola went on an 11-0 run, sparked by a Sam Norton three. From that point until the final buzzer, the Greyhounds' were ahead by 19 or more points.

Champion Doubles Up

• Chuck Champion had his first career double-double Sunday against Dartmouth, scoring 17 points while leading all players with a career-best 11 rebounds.
• The junior guard scored 12 in the first half, including 10 in the final 10 minutes of the stanza. He finished 7 of 12 from the field. In two games (2018 and 2019) against Dartmouth, Champion has averaged 21.5 points against the Big Green.
• His previous career-high in rebounds was nine against Navy last season.
• This season, Champion leads the Greyhounds with 14.7. points and 33.3 minutes per game. He has scored 12 or more points in all three of Loyola's games.

Holcombe Gets Hot

• Brent Holcombe had the best offensive game of his career Sunday against Dartmouth, pouring in 20 points on 8 of 11 shoot. He made two of his three attempts from 3-point range and also pulled down a season-best seven rebounds while blocking two shots.
• He had 13 points to lead the Greyhounds in the first half, all coming in the final 13 minutes of the period. Holcombe was 5 of 7 from the field before halftime.
• On Tuesday night against Delaware State, Holcombe saved his best play for late in the game. He entered the game with just under 15 minutes to play and had seven points, five rebounds and three assists over the next minutes.
• Through three contests, Holcombe is third on the team with 11.3 points and a second with 6.0 rebounds per game.

Trimming Down Turnovers

• An area of emphasis for Loyola after its first game of the year at St. John's was to greatly reduce its 24 turnovers against the Red Storm.
• Tavaras Hardy's team did that by two-thirds versus Dartmouth, giving up the ball only eight times during the game. The Greyhounds followed that up with 11 miscues against Delaware State, lowering 14.3 overall this season and 9.5 in the last two games.

Getting To The Stripe

• Loyola has been adept at getting to the free-throw line through the first three games of the season. The Greyhounds have gone to the stripe 80 times, making 56, and rank 21st in NCAA Division I in free-throws made, 24th in attempts. Both numbers top the Patriot League.

More Career-Highs

• KaVaughn Scott matched his career-best with 14 points against Dartmouth, the most he has scored against a NCAA Division I opponent (previous career-high of 14 was versus Millersville University in 2016).
• Scott made five of the seven shots he took from the field and was the Greyhounds' leading scorer in the second half with eight.
• Kenneth Jones also had a career-best in points, albeit in just his second game at Loyola. He hit a pair of threes en route to scoring 10 off the bench.

All-Around Andrew

• Andrew Kostecka earned Patriot League All-Defensive Team honors – the first for a Loyola player since the Greyhounds joined the conference in 2013-14 – last season after finishing second in the conference in steals per game (2.1) and fourth in blocks (1.1). He was the only Patriot League player to rank in the top five of both categories in 2017-18.
• His 29 blocked shots were the most in Loyola history by a non-post player.
• Kostecka was much more than just a defensive player, however, as he scored at every level and averaged 11.0 points per game as a sophomore. He shot .452 overall (.502 from inside the arc and .323 from 3-point range) and .745 from the free-throw line.
• A Maryland native, Kostecka scored 10 or more points 14 times and had a pair of 20-point games in 2017-18 for the Greyhounds.
• Kostecka opened the 2018-2019 regular season with strong outputs at the offensive and defensive ends of the floor. He led Loyola with 17 points, five rebounds and had a game-best four steals.
• He has eight steals in three games this season, a total that ranks 19th in NCAA Division I through Wednesday night's games. His 2.67 steals per game are 68th.

Consistent Like A Champion

• Chuck Champion missed the first five games of the 2017-12018 season with an injury, but he opened his year with a flourish, scoring a career-high 26 points on 12 of 15 from the floor in a game at Dartmouth College.
• Champion followed that effort with 11 or more points in seven-straight games, scoring 15 or better in his next six.
• Champion was one of the team's most-consistent scorers a season ago, topping the 10-point mark in 16 of the 26 games he played during the year, averaging 11.5 points per game, second-best on last year's squad and the top returning mark.
• Champion is also the team's returning leader in minutes played after averaging 30.7 as a sophomore. This season, he is averaging 37 minutes per game.

Debuting

• Five Greyhounds made their collegiate debuts in the season-opener against St. John's. Kenneth Jones had the highest point total of the quintet, recording seven on 3 of 5 shooting in 14 minutes of action to go with an assist and a steal.
• Jan Dornik knocked down a three, his only shot attempt, and grabbed four rebounds, while Casmir Ochiaka scored on a free throw and had an assist.
• Brandon Bradsher and Markese Redding also saw game action.

Big In The Last Three

• Brent Holcombe played his best basketball of his young career in Loyola's last four games of the 2017-18 season, averaging 11.5 points and 6.8 rebounds in contests against Lehigh, Navy, Army West Point and Bucknell.
• He scored a career-high 18 points on at Navy, knocking down 8 of 15 shots in the regular-season finale, both career highs. The 18 points eclipsed his previous-best of 17 points earlier in February against American. During the second half against Navy, Holcombe scored 11 of his points; nine of those points came over a seven-minute stretch in which he made a three to tie the game at 43-43 and a layup at 10:16 to push Loyola up two. He later passed up a three to assist on a triple by Andrew Kostecka at 6:41 that would give the Greyhounds a three-point advantage. He then converted free-throw line jumpers on consecutive possession to stretch that lead to seven at 4:27.
• In the Patriot League Championships First Round against Army West Point, Holcombe scored eight points, including two free throws with under 25 seconds left. He had his second double-digit rebounding effort of the year with 10.
• He followed that with a his first career double-double, a 12-point, 10-rebound outing against eventual Patriot League champion Bucknell University in the quarterfinal round.

Among His Peers

• Isaiah Hart was among the leaders for Patriot League freshmen last season in both points, steals and assists. His 10.3 points per game ranked fifth with his first-year peers, while his 2.9 assists and 1.0 steals checked in second in the same group. Additionally, Hart's 27.0 minutes played last year ranked fourth among freshmen in the conference.
• Hart led Loyola in assists and was fifth on the team in scoring last year. His 30 total steals were third-most on the team.

Fives Back In '18

• James Fives will return to the Loyola lineup this season after missing the last 21 games of the 2017-18 season.
• Fives made six starts in the first nine games of last year and averaged 5.1 points and 3.9 rebounds in 22.7 minute per game.  As a sophomore in 2016-17, Fives started 30 of 33 games, averaging 6.1 points and 2.6 rebounds per game.

Scholarship For Sam

• After joining the team and playing as a walk-on for the last three years, Sam Norton was awarded a scholarship for his senior season.
• Norton saw increased playing time as a junior, playing in 26 games and starting 10 while averaging 2.7 points and 3.0 rebounds in 17.6 minutes per game.

New To The Hounds

• Five newcomers dot the roster this year: freshmen Jaylin Andrews (Owings Mills, Md./Boys' Latin), Jan Dornik (Kranj, Slovenia/Gymnasium France Peršeren Kranj), Kenny Jones (Hillsdale, N.J./Mater Dei) and Casmir Ochiaka (Enugu, Nigeria/St. Mary's of the Assumption [N.J.]) and sophomore walk-on Brandon  Bradsher (Ellicott City, Md./Boys' Latin).

A Nod To The Past

• Four players graduated from the program a year ago after spending four seasons with the Greyhounds. Andre Walker wrapped up his career sixth all-time at Loyola in points (1,682), second in 3-pointers made (214), ninth in free-throws made (376), fifth in assists (393) and second in steals (195).
• Cam Gregory scored his 1,000th career point late in his senior season, finishing with 1,019 over four years. He also gradated as the school's all-time leader in field-goal percentage (.5819) and third in rebounds (876).
• Chancellor Barnard did not play as a senior due to an injury, but he scored 429 points and had 292 rebounds over three seasons. Matt Staubi saw action in 64 games during his career.

Hounds Abroad

• Several former Loyola players have, or are about to, start professional seasons overseas. Those players include: Denzel Brito '15 (Onsabruecker T.B., Germany), Julius Brooks '13 (Corio Bay, Australia), Cam Gregory '18 (Tromso Story, Norway), Jarred Jones '17 (Lahti, Finland), Jordan Latham '14 (Hawthorn, Australia) Michael Tuck '08 (Sheffield Sharks, England), and Shane Walker '12 (Al-Ittihad, Bahrain).

Up Next

• Loyola heads to Detroit for its last two games of the GotPrint.com Legends Classic presentedby Old Trapper. The Greyhounds play host Detroit Mercy University on Monday, November 19, and they will then face either Bowling Green University or Hampton University the following night.

Patriot League Network

• All of Loyola University Maryland non-televised home men's basketball games will air live on the Patriot League Network for the sixth season.